


One Lesson

by scioscribe



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 20:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5716864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>George Washington lives to hear the news of Hamilton's duel with Burr.  He searches for a response; he finds a memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by my brief crossing-over of two dates, which led me to believe someone had erroneously listed Washington's death date as several years _after_ Hamilton's, not several years _before_. Which led to [this](http://herowndeliverance.tumblr.com/post/137133339293/scioscribe-i-keep-accidentally-creating#notes), which led to [this](http://herowndeliverance.tumblr.com/post/137195509548/please-tell-me-the-monstrosity-isnt-that-horrible#notes), which led to this. In conclusion, I am a monster.
> 
> Also, this story would not exist in its current form without [this story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5511518) and [this story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5571534).

The news came to him in a letter, borne by a man who clearly ignorant of its contents, who stood watching as Washington broke the seal, who must have felt himself Rosencrantz or Guildenstern just as Washington was feeling himself turn to ash. Between the ribs—leave it to Jefferson to be so precise. He put the letter down gingerly, as though it would catch fire.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said to the messenger. “There will be a response. I only require a moment.”

He stepped out into the hall.

 _I’m old now_ , he had said to Martha just the day before. _I look to the left, and I turn the pages of my history, I see my youth_ , and now he saw that that had been folly and sentiment; as if he could catch under glass or press like flowers into a book the boys of his who had fallen, or look off into the wings and see them gathered there. Still, he looked down the length of the corridor some great while, much longer than the moment he had promised, as if he would see Hamilton after all, drenched in light as he’d once been drenched in water, not his hair made black by the river but his skin made tawnier by the afternoon sun through the window. He had come back, after Schuylkill. He could come back.

_Already I can hear your footsteps on the stair; I’ve got the first notes of your song in my throat._

_But I don’t hear the music._

He went back inside and composed an answer. He made sure the man could have food and drink, could refresh his mount, could sit and rest.

Martha found him in his study hours later, stood behind his chair, and by the way she settled her hands on his shoulders and the dampness she left on his bare head as she bent to kiss him, he knew that she knew.

“I told that man to stay until tomorrow,” she said. “We will want to write a letter in the morning to Mrs. Hamilton and the children. Only not tonight.”

“I don’t have the words,” he admitted. “I can’t find the melody. He sang it once, he might have taught it to me.”

“He didn’t know you would need it.”

 _Call me son one more time._ “No,” Washington said. “He didn’t know.” He stretched, just to feel her hand follow his head as he moved forward, though it was such earthly vanity to believe—he understood that now—that there was no keeping such things from falling away. He remembered Hamilton saying he was more than willing to die. “He did try to tell me other things.”

 _I think he never suspected he would live so long_ , he almost said, but when she said, “What things?” with such innocence, as if she’d never seen war, or bathed a soldier’s wounds, he had to reconsider. He searched his memory.

“When von Steuben first arrived, I couldn’t say more than two words to him. I had Laurens—” He cleared his throat. “I had Laurens and Hamilton translate. But it seemed best to learn what I could—which was very little, but Hamilton taught me all of it.”

He told her:

Hamilton had always spoken quickly, his rhythm unlike anyone else’s, and it hadn’t taken long for them to grow impatient with each other: the slow learner and the fast teacher. Hamilton had come back at dusk, though, and after they’d made their apologies, Washington had said, attempting to be wry, “It remains not for me to learn French, Alex, but for us both to learn to better govern our tempers,” and Hamilton had looked up at him. Washington held his gaze—he would leave the plural there, both as fair censure for Hamilton and fair cop for himself—and finally Hamilton had smiled.

“Then I really can teach us both one thing, sir,” he said. "An old lesson in patience."

He’d knocked his fist against the desk; established the beat.

“ _Un_ ,” Alexander said, as a beginning.


End file.
